why is chi kung rubbish

There could be an intersection once the question can be framed using the rules for inclusion in the scientific map.

The primary one is that the question must be disprovable. If you can't disprove it your question isn't well formed enough for investigation and more work needs to be done.

For example if I wish to prove the existence of "chi" than I must be able to come up with a definition of chi that is standard and testable. Until then it is off the map.

Now how you would come up with a testable hypothesis is well beyond my poor skills.

To me this is why zen teachings and practice are not on the scientific map. It doesn't mean that the zen map is not useful but that it is not scientific.

I think the zen map and the scientific map are both very useful for eliminating "magical" thinking. This is where I view reality as I want it to be rather than accepting it as. The difference is one deals with very concrete events and the other deals with how I choose to perceive those events.

The science map eliminates magical thinking by having strict rules for inclusion and the fact that data on the map is constantly being challenged.

The zen map reduces magical thinking by giving me tools that help me recognize when I am applying magical thinking in my current internal map.

Both are useful yet completely different.

 

During surgery, extreme pain will be experienced. In this instance Accupuncture is being used to deaden the nerve responses of the body - a an addition to western anesthesia - a usefull addition.

No western Doctor worth his salt will pay any attention to discussion of Meridians etc.

However, TCM does seem to play a role in explaining Baguazhang and the 8 points of the Bagua and the associated Trigrams - which ultimatey gets you into the Iching (book of changes) i.e. the context must be understood and acknowledged, before using the esoterica of the Bagua and Iching to describe the martial applicability of Baguazhang.

 

If one is not interested in self-defence and by implication, a healthy body to train MA, is there any point at all in going to a Kung Fu class? - just to wave ones arms about in some vague Chinesey sort of way and/or make some Bruce Lee like noises?

Every now and then I meet folk like this, fortunately not for a while.

 

There will only be such a nexus if those vested in what is classed as TCM are willing to let go if it proven to be bunk

They wont commit to this and will instead fall back on such explanations as "oh you cannot look at an Eatsern approach with a Western paradigm...: and other such drivel

The Western Medicine approach will take anything onboard that works. And has trialed lots of these things before that were absolute guff (Therapeutic Touch anyone?)

Again and again I keep saying the EXPLANTION is not as relevant here as the PHENOMENA itself - if you have the former you always have the latter, but not vice versa.

If you have neither then you are either deluded or lying - this is the bit I take issue with. When you are saying something is "xyz" then SHOW me "xyz" - if you cannot demonstrate the phenomena "xyz" consistently it does not exist

 

I think you are I are very much on the same wavelength. Science has its place and rules and that is all to the good. Where it begins to breakdown is stepping into the area of the experiencial. There was a fascinating program last night on our Public Broadcast Station (WTTW- Chicago) that was absolutely spot-on for Lil Bunny and I. It had to do with the nature of Quantum Physics within the context of historical questions posed by such as Einstein and Bohr into the nature of observation and measurement as it relates to outcome. Extraordinary viewing, but after a while my eyes started to glaze-over! Just the idea of an electron in motion becoming a series of waves-of-probability rather than a single discrete item was huge.

Best Wishes,

Bruce

 

Well.... of course you know that there is a case made for "Therapeutic Touch". In fact the need to handle and communicate with newborns is widely documented. Nursing staff are regularly scheduled to do just that in order to ward off what is loosely termed "failure to thrive". Along different lines, the activity in Hospitals termed "Therapeutic Animals" works somewhat in the opposite direction. Again, nobody knows how or why. FWIW.

Best Wishes,

Bruce

 

Bruce, you keep adding

into your comments as if it was some proof against scientific thought or proof of something mysterious.

All of us have said that there are things that science can't explain or or not understood well enough at this point, to even develop a testable hypothesis.

This doesn't mean that there is some unknowable force in the universe. It simply means that we don't know yet.

 

That is not what is meant by "Therapeutic Touch" Bruce

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therapeutic_touch

 

Skin to skin contact and communicating with newborns and therapeutic touch are TOTALLY different.
One is about connecting, nurturing and comforting.
The other is about waving your hands over someone and going "izzy wizzy let's get busy you now feel better".
Also..therapeutic animals (PAT dogs as they are called here) are different again.

 

Your first two senetences honestly made me laugh out loud!

I'm quite happy, but also quite "lonely" as far as like minded people are concerned. Most people don't think like me. Saddly LWT named this thread in such a way that sceptics came a swarming.

As for me. I believe the world is totally grey (as in not black and white). When you work in a biological laboratory you have to discard black and white logic. But there are some things that just are, these are facts or laws. And yes if you can't or choose not to accept these you fall into the area of ignorance (well willful ignorance).

Actually these are the exact definitions of the word...

Please understand that the term ignorant does not mean stupid. It just means ill- or un-informed. Ignorance deals with knowledge/information and not itellegence (the two are seperate). So when people call you ignorant (using the proper definition) they are simply saying that you don't have correct or any information, and aren't calling you stupid.

I use "you", but I'm speaking generally.

Hmm well the fact is a little more complex. We have a lot of theories for why we dream. One of the ones I'm more familiar with is that our brain's are trying to prep us with the stresses that we'll encounter in the day based on what events we know to happen in the near future (like dreaming of doing an exam naked right before doing the exam itself). Sort of a desensitization to stress if you will; more useful in our hunter gather societies.

Well science doesn't make guesses (well rarely) they draw up "theories" based on conventional knowledge or observable phenomina and then test them till they are discarded for a better theory or become fact.

I personally prefer to know that the medicine I use is KNOWN to work, rather is SAID to work. And that's why I go for science and not mystcism or w/e else. And why I also think it's important for people to hold a sceptical mind, especially for the mystical stuff.

 

If it makes you feel better, that matters. I think you should practice or believe w/e you want and w/e makes you feel better.

Where I have the issue is when people trade reality with their mumbo-jumbo. As is the case with one of my family friends who traded chemo for "therapeutic rocks" (I don't know what these are TBH). Of course her leukemia got worse, and now she's bed ridden and severely immunocompromised so that no visitors can come by. Guess what, she is still choosing alt. medicine over the "Western" stuff she believes to be poison or evil.

(Good news though, her husband is forcing her to do chemo and she's doing a lot better already.)

Of course this is the worst case scenerio, but it's one of the main reasons I prefer facts over mysticism. It works.

 

This website might shed some light.

http://whatstheharm.net/

"Feeling better" isn't BEING better.
And that's important to me and countless others.

 

Surely is was the placebo effect? Its an isolated case so we can't really draw any conclusions from this event though.

But there have been a lot of tests on Asian Medicine already. Saddly for the most part they always fail the tests, or show up with nothing significant.

I know acupuncture has been tested. It was shown to only help slightly with back pain. Far from the miracle cure that TCM guys would have you believe.

I won't refernece myself though because I'm lazy at the moment.

 

And equally I'm sure we're all familiar with the extreme bias towards TCM that comes along with ANY study or event in China?
So much so that I wouldn't take a study from China saying that TCM medicine worked as evidence for it working at all.
The encroachment of bias, bad study protocol and just plain old pro-China propaganda would be too problematic IMHO.

 

No. As far as an objective, rational view of the world subjective experience is worth jack and should be treated thusly.

Actually it has. We've recognized that empirically tested hypothesis are the only course to actual knowledge. We've given up on guessing and pulling explanatns out of our individual and collective butts and look at the massive advances in science and technology which have come along with it.

those who have such interests are anyone who seeks to end their ignorance and gain real knowledge of the the world.
Person doesn't need to be capitalized like that. Just like your capitalization of experience it is pretentious and unneccessary even if you're attempting to discuss a specific psychological construct, but again those are based on theories and subject to empirical testing. So for those seeking to learn about themselves it gives a variety of empirically tested information and constructs on emotion, thought, attachment, stress, learning, inter/intrapersonal interactions and more.

We know a significant amount more about people through empical testing than we ever got through our assumptions and we've proven a great many of our assumptions wrong over time. For example Humorism was a widely held theory. So much so it has been integrated into daily language.but we disproved it through methodical, empirical observation.

Best Wishes,

 

OK...well said... then what is to be done about Probability? From what I just watch on TV, Probability plays a huge part on Quantum Mechanics yet strictly speaking it is neither fact nor fiction. Thoughts?

And noone has said anything about cases where the mere act of measuring or observing impacts the event. Thoughts?

Best Wishes,

Bruce

 

Quantum has no business entering the equation at our level - very few of us understand it at all, and usually it is mishandled and misquoted so much as to be hardly recognisible

 

Therapeutic Touch? Is this similar in concept to the spirit healers (the ones who operate on people with their fingers, some blood, but no hole afterwards)?

I.e mostly a conjuring trick.

If so it could also hold lessons, albeit not the one they present...

Edit: I think the term I was looking for was spiritual/psychic surgery?

 

Quantum Mechanics are only applicable on the quantum level, otherwise they would just be called mechanics.